The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

News about my book, friends in my studio and a new quilt

It’s been an intense week as I frantically worked to finish a new quilt to submit tothe World of Beauty show in Houston. I have been 100% accurate in my previous predictions of whether I’d jury in or not, but this time I am not feeling confident. But it doesn’t matter what I think, it’s the Juror’s job to decide.

The way I typically work is to quilt LOTS of ideas “offline” to see if I like them, if they work, if they are true to my vision. This is just a bit of my offline work.

 

Here’s a sneak peek at what I’ve been working on. We’ll see what the Jurors think.

When I’m working on a piece like this, I keep my grass “inventory” to the side so that I can refer back to them as I create my piece.

Once I finish a piece, I like to to clean up my studio and ready it for the next piece. A clean studio gives me way more pleasure than it should, blush.

FRIENDS IN MY STUDIO 

So what’s this “friends in my studio”?

You’ve probably heard by now that Machine Quilting Unltd and its sister publication Modern Quilts Unltd, as well as 2 Australian magazines announced that they will no longer publish. I am saddened by this. MQU was my favorite quilt magazine and I have been a subscriber since their first issue with Diane Gaudynski’s work on the cover. They have published several of my quilts and I pore over their pages each month.

There are other excellent magazines-Quilting Arts, Quiltfolk, others I can’t think of at the moment. But MQU filled a niche that was different in that was a more general quilt magazine.

I found several of my favorite titles through MQU reviews, especially self-published titles that I may not have found otherwise.

They regularly reviewed and wrote about new products and notions that I may not have not discovered on my own.

I think of these books and notions as “friends” in my studio that inform me, help me and make things faster and easier. While making this quilt I referred to Bethanne Nemesh’s book on edge treatments for quilts and I thumbed through Margaret Solomon Gunn’s book on fills for inspiration. Both of these are self-published books that I treasure.

I think about some of the detailed articles that Margaret Solomon Gunn or Sarah Ann Smith wrote and wonder where I will get that type of information in the future. I almost always found inspiration in their featured quilter and will miss that.

I think the demise of these magazines fractures the quilting community just  a wee bit. I feel like MQU brought us together to learn and be inspired. And now it’s gone, sniff, sniff.

MY BOOK

And lookie what came in the mail…

C&T’s fall book catalog!

And there is my book, a full page description. With each step it gets more real. There are many tales of books that have been pulled right before publication and this just makes it more final to me. I am so excited!

I’ll be going to Fall Market to promote my book–this will be my first time. I will drink it all in–discover new products, meet with vendors, see the newest fabric lines and find out what’s new in the industry. I will have a spot at Schoolhouse where I will get to promote my book to shop owners and other wholesale purchasers. Can’t wait-yippeeeee!

I’ll be posting to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday so join in on the linky party.

Comments

  1. Jenny, I agree with your disappointment about the demise of MQU magazine! What a great resource it has been–my favorite, and it will be sorely missed. Good luck on your Houston submission. Love your grasses.

    • Thank you Martha! MQU was kind of like a guild meeting-we all gathered no matter what our genre. We’ll see about Houston….

  2. Congrats on your book— what a thrill that must be after all the hard work of writing it! Looking forward to getting a copy! Good luck at Houston!

  3. Congratulations on your book! I can’t wait to get it and add to my group of “friends”. You are a fabulous teacher and I can’t wait to take more classes from you.

  5. I absolutely love your grasses. My mom had an old book on plant ID that I have recently rediscovered. Where the grasses were illustrated the background was black so that you could get the important identification details in the flower stalks and seeds. Your black background and gold stitching remind me of that book.

  6. Best of luck on your Houston entry, Jenny! As for MQU, I’m beyond disappointment and approaching anger. Why am I angry? Because about ten days before the magazine’s announcement, they sent me a notice to renew — and I did. Why in the world would anyone do something like that, given that they had to have known that there was at least the possibility that they were shutting down? I think it was really underhanded. I did love the magazine, though, and had been a subscriber, like you, from the very first issue.

    • Thank you Sandy. I have heard such a remark from others too. I am puzzled. I think they are great people and I wonder what will happen to those that renewed and why the shutdown appeared to be so sudden. I am so sad to see them go.

  10. I also have a new subscription to Machine Quilting Unlimited. My daughter gave it to me for Mother’s Day this year. She was very excited to be able to do that. She has very little money to spend so it was a special gift. I haven’t received even one issue of the magazine. I am so disappointed. I am also surprised they accepted the subscription. She only sent it in three weeks ago. I tried to call the circulation department. They aren’t answering their phones. I also sent an e-mail but haven’t received an acknowledgement or a reply. Sad that such a trusted name in the quilting world would do something like this to it’s followers. :(

  11. Tried to post earlier and it never got posted. My daughter gave me an subscription to Machine Quilting Unlimited for Mother’s Day. She ordered it a mere 3 weeks ago and they took her money. I never received even one issue. They are not answering their phones nor are they responding to e-mails. Guess we are out the money. Sad that MQU has been such a fixture in the quilting world for so long yet feel free to take advantage of those who supported them for so many years.

    Congratulations on your book Jenny. Hope it’s a huge success!!! Love how you depict nature. FABULOUS!

  13. Jenny… your work has inspired me for a long time and yes, though the stories and photos in MQU. Thee is noting more thrilling to a quilt artist than seeing his/her work in print for all to see. Exhibitions are wonderful and the quilts YOU have contributed are well loved for sure. And now a book that hares even more of your art and best of all, your thought processes and actual presentation of technique we can refer to for years to come. Cannot wait to add this book to the Textile Design Program Library at St. Lawrence College in Kingston ON where I have been a Professor for 22 years. My students love you and your work – and now the book! Celebrate!
    bethany

    • Oh I am so flattered Bethany! Thank you for such a lovely comment. I would be honored to have my book in your library. I think you’re in SAQA, right? Maybe I will meet you at Conference in Toronto in 2020? I just signed up for your blog.

  15. Your work continues to be stunning, Jenny. Can’t wait to see the entire quilt. In a perfect world, it’s a no brainer that it should be accepted. You can run with the ‘big dogs’ any day. But we all know that judges have personal preferences, so don’t be disheartened if it’s not accepted. I look forward to seeing it at PIQF in the future. I, too, am saddened by the news about MQU. Your discussion of it was the first announcement I’d heard. Seems they would have to issue refunds – very dishonest of them to encourage subscriptions. Sounds like fraud.

    Fingers crossed on your successful acceptance into Houston and elsewhere! It looks like another beauty

    • Thank you for all that encouragement Diane! I get how hard it is to jury Houston and also they are going for a cohesive show so there are so many factors involved. I would be over the moon to be in!

  16. First I love your blog and enjoy seeing what you are up to. Congrats on the book as well. How great for all of us. Second I too am one of those that had just renewed. I didn’t know anything about it until I read this blog. Right now I am upset and angry. How dare they do this to us. It is so sad to think that companies feel they can do this to people. I don’t have much money so saved every year so I could renew. I am from Canada so it cost me even more. Maybe they didn’t have money but we shouldn’t have to help pay their bills and get nothing out of it. Well that is my rant. I would like to add that Zeke is cute. Reminds me of one of my granddogs, she is an English Bulldog.

    • Thank you Marilyn, I am glad you enjoy my blog and it’s encouraging that you wrote. I don’t know what is happening with MQU/renewals and sudden closing. I am trying to find out and if I do I will write about it. I know it’s a bummer to lose your money!

  17. Oh boy, the highs and the lows, huh? I am sad about the lost publications too. Too many things on paper are disappearing. But then, there’s your book to help fill the void! I can’t wait to see it up close.

    • Thank you Franki! I said at the beginning of the year that I expected to see some major shakeups in the industry and that some of the losses were going to hit me directly. True.

  18. 1. I am with you about the clean studio. When mine gets too messy, I get paralyzed and can’t accomplish ANYTHING until I just set a timer and start putting things back where they belong until the timer goes off! 2. I have several of those titles in my own collection — Quilted Symphony, Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!, Quilting Makes the Quilt, to name a few. 3. CONGRATULATIONS on your upcoming book!! YAY!!! 3. My fingers are crossed for you for Houston, too. :-)